Mark Renson
New member
Well, last weeks 2 foot dump pulled us from the brink of disaster. Conditions were variable, though, with tricky slick spots amongst the skier packed snow. Tricky conditions meant that we were pretty busy with incidents ? much more than we are accustomed to. An off-piste incident made me wonder if the woods were reasonable, yet.
Upper Panther was enjoyable on trail check with some untracked still found on the way to Slalom Hill. I worked on some technique and getting toboggans organized, so it was not the best ski day for me. When it came time to sweep Birdland, I saw ?ol Howard come outta? the Birdcage and make his way to the lift. If he ain?t 80, he?s 79 years old and has the longest tenure of any patroller in the NSP and did some work at the 1960 Squaw Valley Olympics. So, we happily brought him along to sweep and he took care of Loon.
After getting a drink that night, I retired and figured that we?d only get an inch at best.
Next morning, it was time to shovel ?..shovel the Hartford Ski Club and then over to the Basebox and shovel the walks. This was a good thing as we got a surprise 6-7? of light candy
. I also had to participate in an NSP ski clinic being held. But first, we had trail check 8-[ . Charlie took Panther before I got to it and I was dumb and decided to be a gentleman and let Penny and Cindy select trails ahead of me and Penny picked a plum (Gazelle Glades) and I let Jim pick ahead of me as he had been humping a lot for the patrol, lately. Oh well, I got to check Quacky III and Snail and whaddya? know, BRUTAL GROOMING :twisted: had been done early the prior evening before most of the fluff fell. That meant knee deep untracked on the novice Vixen to get to Quacky III and ditto for the latter as well as Snail. Countless mellow powder turns 8) were made and the long novice stretch down to P-Bowl was heaven as the sun was coming out. Back to the scheduled clinic, it turned out that the instructor was late due to an incident, so we took along the visiting participants (from Smuggs) and showed off some great untracked down Gazelle/Gazelle Woods/Chipmunk for them. The instructor eventually showed up and after a warm-up down Fox, we stood at the top of Canyon with its load of yummy snow 
, he looked at us and asked ?is this it? and a ?yes? response caused him to rocket off down Canyon. ?Hey, we like this guy? we blurted out. Much fun was had ? no friends on a powder day?? Bullsh*t 
, that should be ?New? friends on a powder day as we all bonded and had great turns and much fun.
We spent the rest of the day clinicing and getting in some nice bumps. The surprise storm brought conditions from just getting off of Intensive Care to nice mid-Winter conditions. As usual, the clinicing was tough and humbling for me. Hoo boy, it amazes me how much work I still need to do on technique
. I try very hard not to get discouraged.
But, I had a great day, anyway.
Mark
Upper Panther was enjoyable on trail check with some untracked still found on the way to Slalom Hill. I worked on some technique and getting toboggans organized, so it was not the best ski day for me. When it came time to sweep Birdland, I saw ?ol Howard come outta? the Birdcage and make his way to the lift. If he ain?t 80, he?s 79 years old and has the longest tenure of any patroller in the NSP and did some work at the 1960 Squaw Valley Olympics. So, we happily brought him along to sweep and he took care of Loon.
After getting a drink that night, I retired and figured that we?d only get an inch at best.
Next morning, it was time to shovel ?..shovel the Hartford Ski Club and then over to the Basebox and shovel the walks. This was a good thing as we got a surprise 6-7? of light candy
. I also had to participate in an NSP ski clinic being held. But first, we had trail check 8-[ . Charlie took Panther before I got to it and I was dumb and decided to be a gentleman and let Penny and Cindy select trails ahead of me and Penny picked a plum (Gazelle Glades) and I let Jim pick ahead of me as he had been humping a lot for the patrol, lately. Oh well, I got to check Quacky III and Snail and whaddya? know, BRUTAL GROOMING :twisted: had been done early the prior evening before most of the fluff fell. That meant knee deep untracked on the novice Vixen to get to Quacky III and ditto for the latter as well as Snail. Countless mellow powder turns 8) were made and the long novice stretch down to P-Bowl was heaven as the sun was coming out. Back to the scheduled clinic, it turned out that the instructor was late due to an incident, so we took along the visiting participants (from Smuggs) and showed off some great untracked down Gazelle/Gazelle Woods/Chipmunk for them. The instructor eventually showed up and after a warm-up down Fox, we stood at the top of Canyon with its load of yummy snow , he looked at us and asked ?is this it? and a ?yes? response caused him to rocket off down Canyon. ?Hey, we like this guy? we blurted out. Much fun was had ? no friends on a powder day?? Bullsh*t , that should be ?New? friends on a powder day as we all bonded and had great turns and much fun.We spent the rest of the day clinicing and getting in some nice bumps. The surprise storm brought conditions from just getting off of Intensive Care to nice mid-Winter conditions. As usual, the clinicing was tough and humbling for me. Hoo boy, it amazes me how much work I still need to do on technique
. I try very hard not to get discouraged.But, I had a great day, anyway.
Mark